The Academie

by Dunlap, Susanne

  It is Hortense. She looks so beautiful, so radiant, yet so sad that I stifle a gasp. I feel Caroline’s grip on my arm. “You’d think she was being led to her execution, not paraded as a prize catch,” she says into my ear, biting her words so hard that I feel a spray of spit on “catch.”

  A prize catch. What can she mean? Joséphine floats to Hortense and takes her hand, leading her through the guests over to where Louis and Lucien Bonaparte stand, deep in conversation about something. Everyone in the room is watching except for the two Bonaparte brothers, and Joséphine lays her hand on Lucien’s shoulder to get their attention.

  He turns and bows politely, and I see him cast an appraising eye over Hortense. Hortense looks down through it all. Louis, though, gives a quick smile and nod and tries to talk to Lucien again, but Joséphine gently yet firmly positions Louis so that he must pay attention to Hortense. A moment later, Joséphine takes Lucien’s arm and leads him away to the conversation involving Barras, Napoléon, and Sieyès.

  Hortense and Louis stand side by side, one looking as embarrassed as the other. Heavens! Joséphine is making a match between Hortense and her husband’s brother!

  24

  Madeleine

  Something important is happening. I can tell. First was the message two days ago from my beloved, just after the embarrassing scene in my mother’s dressing room. I was in such deep despair, and the sight of a note in Eugène’s handwriting made my spirits soar. Then I read it, and plunged again into a hopeless blackness.

  My darling,

  I know I promised I would come tonight, but I cannot, nor for several nights hence. Changes are afoot, changes I may not discuss. I believe they will result in my promotion, and therefore hasten the time that we may achieve our happiness. Know that I am thinking of you constantly, and send me your prayers that all will go as planned.

  My mother, too, is in a foul mood. That night—that terrible night—was the last one in which the theater was full. We are performing a different play now, one where I have a small part as a poor urchin, as usual. Tonight, I could not help noticing that the stalls were nearly empty. Normally we look out over a sea of blue military coats, but this evening there was only a scattering of them.

  Marianne and I help my mother undress after the performance. She has no visitors. “You odious child! It’s all because of you. You coughed onstage when I was delivering my most moving line. It is that line, the way I deliver it, that brings them to my door night after night. Get out of my sight!”

  I duck to avoid the shoe she throws at me. Then I place her glass of champagne on the nearest clear space—not easy to find in the tumble of paste jewelry, pots of rouge, combs, and wigs—and slip out the door before she gets drunk and becomes truly violent.

  She is out of her senses, I know, and yet I cannot help having some sympathy for her. There is nothing more disheartening than hearing only lackluster clapping when I could see from the wings that she was pouring herself into the role.

  I like to watch my mother act. She becomes someone else, someone better than she is. I always hope that this other person who is buried deep inside her will emerge when she is not onstage. She’d catch everyone by surprise.

  When I watch my mother’s glowing face in the light of the thousands of candles, I glimpse our life in Martinique, so long ago when I was just a tiny child. She used to pick me up and bounce me on her knee, feed me the sweet, ripe fruit that was always so plentiful. Papa, too, was a golden being. We were happy, the three of us.

  Then we took the long voyage across the sea and came back to France, and everything changed. Papa was jealous—Maman gave him reason to be. He threw us out. We came to the theater.

  But perhaps the final joke was on him after all. He went to the guillotine, like most of the aristocratic friends who persuaded him to give up his dark wife. Including the Vicomte de Beauharnais, my darling Eugène’s father. They were friends, so I heard once. I have not told Eugène. He need not know—not yet, anyway.

  I make my way up to the tiny room in the attics above the Salle Richelieu, this old palace where our world of the Comédie Française goes upon its constant, absurd rounds. My room is plain, my mattress only lumpy straw upon the floor. But I have a small window that looks out over Paris. Even at night when most of the streetlamps are extinguished I can see the ribbon of the Seine reflecting the moon, stretching away into a distant land I can only imagine.

  Someday I shall sail away upon that beguiling water.

  To my surprise, I find a bouquet of white roses on the little dresser where I keep my few items of clothing. They can only be from one person, and I rush to bury my face in their velvety petals and drink in their heady aroma.

  The other actresses want jewels. “Flowers die,” Maman said one day as I watched her toss a glorious spray of lilacs away. “Diamonds are as good as cash.”

  I don’t imagine anyone would give me diamonds, and so I am quite content with flowers.

  But that isn’t true. I want more. I search through the stems and discover what I’d hoped for. A letter.

  Ma petite! Ma cherie!

  The day after tomorrow I shall come for you, in the morning. I cannot wait any longer, despite what I said before. Every time I close my eyes I see the bruise on your cheek, the one you could not hide when you were onstage the other night, and I know I must deliver you from that fiend you persist in calling your mother. We shall go away. It will be necessary to keep ourselves secret for a while, but we’ll find a priest to marry us so we will not live in sin. You will not have to spend another night suffering upon the stage. Trust me!

  Your beloved E

  It is too much to hope for, and yet why would he lie? All the dark sadness drops away from my heart. Eugène will come for me after all!

  He says it plainly: the day after tomorrow in the morning, he will come. I have preparations to make. What should I bring? Aside from the little parcel of belongings I have kept aside, my clothes are not worthy, not good enough to be seen in while arm in arm with him.

  I have only one item of any value. It is the necklace given to me by my grandmother, who died before we left the island. A gold cross, with a tiny pearl at its center.

  “This is for you, ma petite,” I remember her saying. “Your life will not be easy. Your maman cannot know what awaits you should you ever go to France. I do not trust my son to be strong enough to overcome the gossipers and cruel ones. I wish you could wear this always, but you must keep it hidden away, or they will try to steal it from you. It bears our coat of arms on the back. Proof that you are of our blood.”

  I was only four years old, but something told me even then she was right. The world outside the plantation would destroy us. It has destroyed us. I kept the necklace in a box that I hid under a stone in the garden. Every day I checked to make certain it was still there, and when we had to flee for our lives, away from the slaves that were rising up against the cruel overseers, I tucked it into the middle of the pretty dresses the maid quickly packed for me in the middle of the night.

  And it is still with me. My mother cannot even imagine that I have anything of value. She doesn’t know about my most precious secret, my love, whose worth is beyond this tiny trinket that I treasure nonetheless.

  He comes for me the day after tomorrow. Only two more nights, and my life can begin.

  25

  Hortense

  Now I know for certain. She has not told me in so many words, but every action, every expression confirms it. She even sent me a beautiful diamond bracelet to wear.

  She wants me to marry Louis Bonaparte, Napoléon’s brother. I had to calm myself before coming down to join the party. The footman eventually sent a maid to fetch me.

  “What is he like?” I asked her. The maid is a sweet young girl from the country.

  “Who?” she asked in return.

  Before I could explain, we were at the doors, and they opened. The most important people in France stood in small groups in Maman’s drawing
room, but I cared not in the least bit. Maman led me to Louis and Lucien, and now has left me here after taking Lucien—who, although not as attractive as Napoléon, is a little handsome—away.

  “You are in school, I hear?” Louis finally asks me after an agonizing period of silence. I can tell by his restlessness—the way he first clasps his hands in front of him and then behind him—that he would far rather be with Lucien, Napoléon, and Joseph, who are deep in conversation with Barras, Murat, and Sieyès. I would like to release him, but fear my mother’s wrath. She has asked him to take me into dinner and no doubt will seat him next to me. I have looked only once at his face, and it did not please me.

  “Yes, in Saint-Germain,” I say. “Do you know what the gentlemen are talking about?” I ask, thinking perhaps he will become witty and interesting at least.

  “No. Yes.” That’s all he says.

  I see Eliza and Caroline standing apart from the others by a window. Caroline bends toward Eliza, no doubt filling her head with lies. I cannot understand what I have done to deserve her cruelty! If I am forced to marry her brother, no doubt she will hate me all the more.

  At last the drawing room doors open and the footman whispers to Maman. She turns with a smile to everyone and spreads out her arms. “Our dinner awaits us!” Then I see her walk through the room, pairing people. She has Napoléon take Madame Tallien in. That’s a gesture of pure irony. Even I have heard the rumors that Madame Tallien had a brief affair with Napoléon when she was first with Barras.

  She takes Eugène and gives him Eliza’s arm. Ah, that will please her. She is too young to hide the embarrassed delight on her face.

  And now—she gestures to Murat and pairs him with Caroline! I cast a quick glance at Madame Bonaparte. Her eyes flash. But Joséphine is soon by Madame Bonaparte’s side and hands her smoothly to Barras. Next, she looks in our direction and Louis obliges by giving me his arm. It is thin and wiry, and I stand a few inches taller than he.

  Maman takes Lucien’s arm herself.

  It is like a ballet, or a pantomime. So much has been said without a word being spoken.

  All through dinner I can barely eat. My stomach feels as if it is churning with eels. Louis says very little, and none of it to me. Perhaps he is as unhappy as I about this proposed arrangement. It is all I can do not to leap from my chair and run screaming from the room.

  After what seems an eternity the dinner ends. The ladies leave the gentlemen to their smoking and brandy and retire to the drawing room.

  I expect to be reprimanded by Maman for having had so little to say to Louis, but as soon as we are all there, she calls me, Caroline, and Eliza over.

  “Mesdemoiselles, my dears,” she says. “I ask for your indulgence in a matter of great import. I am afraid I have called my coach to take you all back to school this very night. It is the wish of my husband that you should remain there until you are summoned again.”

  “Sent back to school! What right do you have, madame?” It is Caroline. I understand her fury, but I feel only relief.

  “It is not I but your brother who commands it, dear Caroline,” Maman says, ignoring the insult.

  To my astonishment, Madame Bonaparte joins us. “Yes, Caroline. Be a good girl. It is for the best.”

  Caroline whirls around and swishes out of the drawing room. I see her eyes glittering and know she is crying.

  I take Eliza’s arm. “Come,” I say. “We can talk it all over in the coach on the way.”

  We discover that the maids have already packed our cases and have our traveling clothes ready for us. We wait in the vestibule for the coach to be prepared. The door of the dining room opens to admit a servant with a tray containing a new decanter of brandy. We hear Barras’s voice sailing out through it.

  “To the eighteenth of Brumaire!” he says.

  A chorus of “Vive la liberté!” comes from the rest of the men.

  I look at Caroline. “That is the day after tomorrow!” I say. “What can they be planning?”

  She looks back at me and whispers, “I think I know.”

  At that moment the footman opens the front door and leads us out to the waiting coach. The air outside is cold but fresh. I breathe in deeply, not realizing until then how oppressive the atmosphere inside my mother’s house has been.

  We climb into the coach in our mantles and muffs, and as soon as the footman shuts the door the coachman cracks his whip over the horses’ backs and we start off.

  Caroline sits opposite me with Eliza at her side. Eliza’s eyes are like moist, purple grapes. Caroline’s are as hard and brittle as jet.

  She leans forward. “Are we going to allow them to send us away like children, when they are clearly planning something that will affect all of France?”

  All I want to do is disappear into the world of school, and see Michel again. Now more than ever I hope that his regard for me is real, that there is a chance he could take me out of this confused mess of family relationships. But Caroline speaks with such passion, and I confess I am more than curious. “What do you suggest?” I ask.

  “I propose that we meet them the day after tomorrow. Murat said something that I believe he was not supposed to, and I think I know where they are going.”

  “Yes!” Eliza says. “Eugène, too, said something mysterious, but now perhaps I understand!”

  I lean back in my seat. “Very well,” I say. “If you go, I go too.”

  Caroline does something I would never have expected. She reaches out her hand to me. I meet it. She grasps it, hard. “I know you do not want to marry Louis,” she says. “I may be able to help you.”

  26

  Eliza

  Caroline begins to speak, acting like a general consulting with her advisers.

  “We must make our plan before we return to school, because there will be no time once we arrive.” She turns to me. “Eliza, what have you heard?”

  “I was seated next to Eugène, who was speaking across the table with Murat,” I say. “He mentioned something about going to Saint-Cloud, but then, when he noticed that I was listening, dismissed it, as if he had made a mistake.”

  Hortense looks confused. “Why Saint-Cloud? If they are planning something with the Directoire, surely they would go to Paris.”

  Caroline speaks again. “I too overheard Murat and Barras talking at dinner. They thought I wasn’t listening. They said they would have to get the Directoire out of Paris if the plan was going to work.”

  “And the Council of Five Hundred? What of them?” Hortense asks.

  The Council of Five Hundred? I know little about them. “I don’t understand,” I say.

  Caroline makes a clicking noise as though she is irritated with my ignorance, but she explains anyway. “You see, the Directoire, which is five men with different posts in the government, has made terrible decisions that have bankrupted the treasury. And the Council of Five Hundred, supposedly in place to ratify anything the Directoire wants to enact, is worse than useless. All they do is argue. There is no strong government.”

  Hortense interjects. “What can they mean to do—Bonaparte and the others?”

  A slow smile spreads across Caroline’s face. “I don’t know for certain, but I believe the fortunes of my family are about to take another significant leap forward, and I want to be there to witness it!”

  I shake my head. “How can we do that? We would have to leave school, we’ll need a coach, and if anyone sees us they’ll send us away.”

  “I think there is a way,” Caroline says, “but we must be very clever, and very brave. We must disguise ourselves so that no one will recognize us.” She looks back and forth between us. “No one must even know that we are women.”

  We sit in silence for a moment. I’m not sure I understand why this is so important to Caroline, and I doubt that Hortense—who is always so well-behaved—will go along with her.

  “How does this make a difference to me? As you say, it is your family.” I detect a note of bitterness in
Hortense’s voice, which surprises me.

  Caroline draws herself up. “If we, the Bonapartes, are elevated to yet a higher position in society and the government, there may be no need for my brother Louis to marry for the sake of an old title.”

  That was unkind. I try to see the expression on Hortense’s face in the dim light inside the carriage.

  “We should dress as soldiers.” It is Hortense. Her eyes are shining. Can it be that she agrees with Caroline? That she is not offended by what she said?

  “How?” I ask.

  Caroline grips my hands. “Eliza, your maid Ernestine is an excellent seamstress, is she not?”

  I nod. “But where will we find materials? And how will we hide what she is doing?”

  “I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but are we agreed that we shall try?” Caroline asks.

  “Valmont may be able to help,” Hortense says. “Perhaps he can get us breeches to alter, castoffs from the Collège Irlandais.”

  Valmont? Why would he help us? I wonder.

  “So let us make a pact. We vow to do whatever it takes to be with the army and the generals on the eighteenth of Brumaire. Agreed?” Caroline can hardly contain her excitement.

  I look back and forth at my two new friends. What they are suggesting could cause serious trouble for me if we are found out, could result in having me sent back to Virginia in disgrace.

  But their passion about the plan is irresistible. I take a deep breath. “Agreed.”

  Before I know it we are all clasping each other and laughing. I’m sure my mother never dreamed I would become involved in such an escapade. I silently ask her forgiveness, even as I look forward to our project with growing elation.

  It is late when we arrive at the school. The night porter lets us in, explaining that Madame Campan is expecting us, that she received a communication earlier from Madame Bonaparte.